


No Light, No Light

by dfotw



Category: Nimona (Webcomic)
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, M/M, Post-Canon Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-05
Updated: 2014-10-05
Packaged: 2018-02-20 00:52:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2409107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dfotw/pseuds/dfotw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While we wait for May 2015 and the promised book-only epilogue, here's a look at what could happen to Ballister Blackheart and Ambrosius Goldenloin after the last page of NIMONA!</p>
<p> <br/><i>In the darkness, it's possible to pretend that the last ten years have not happened, and that they are young men with their whole lives ahead of them and no scars to speak of.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	No Light, No Light

**Author's Note:**

> I take off my shark-shaped hat to Noelle Stevenson for regaling us with the story of Nimona, Ballister, Ambrosius, et al. It was a privilege to have my feels torn to itty-bitty pieces by her story.  
> I also owe much gratitude to [Yun](http://archiveofourown.org/users/yunhaiiro/pseuds/yunhaiiro), for putting up with my whining about fic ideas and my inability to write them. And to the many wonderful Nimoniacs who made the comments section after every update a great read, I salute you!  
> (title from the Florence + The Machine song, because by this point it's a tradition)

Ballister stays in hospital until Ambrosius is discharged. Then, he takes him home. 

An evil lair is not the best place for two men in recovery, but almost of all the Institution facilities have been destroyed, so Ambrosius has nowhere else to go. Except for all the doors broken by Nimona, which Ballister hasn't had a heart to fix, and the disaster zone that is the kitchen, the place is more liveable than most of the city, anyway.

The people who are not calling for the disbanding of the Institution seem to think that Ballister is the Director's obvious successor, and nothing he says seems to change their minds. 

Lady Greatthorn, who has been put in charge of the government after the king's death, tells him the country cannot afford to lose the Institution.

“The late Director held the late King in thrall, and made the Institution the backbone of the government, for good or bad,” she says, her bony hands toying with a biscuit. “The government needs a backbone now if we're to rebuild the city.”

Ballister has inside knowledge of the Institution's inner workings and ideas on what needs to be improved (basically, everything), and his popularity has soared since the riots, and even more so since images of him with the Institution going up in flames behind him became a symbol of the happy ending to the Night of Horrors. Before he knows it, the Lady Regent has officially named Lord Ballister Blackheart Director of the Institution of Law Enforcement and Heroics.

The new Director works from home a lot. He directs the cleaning crews, and compiles lists of casualties, and schedules patrols to stop the worst of the looting, and pores over budgets to try and channel the money where it's needed the most, and sends the schematics of his hand to the people at the Royal Hospital, who are dealing with an influx of patients needing prosthetics. His lab, once the only room in the castle which saw any use, quickly grows a coat of dust.

Ambrosius never leaves his room, seldom his bed. Ballister keeps straining his ears to catch some reassuring noise, but there is rarely anything louder than a shuffle over the rug (only a little charred around the edges) that he'd salvaged from what he'd been told were Ambrosius' quarters in the Institution.

There hadn't been much there to salvage at all. The barracks were almost completely demolished, the buildings now little more than piles of rubble with burnt bits sticking up everywhere. Ambrosius' room had a half a wall still standing, and the wardrobe was half-crushed, so Ballister returned with nothing more than a bag filled with three changes of clothes that smelled of smoke, and an old knight figurine. Ambrosius didn't own anything else.

Ballister's list of contacts, once so sparse, has swelled like a particularly intractable chemical reaction, or a container of genetically-modified anchovies left too long in the fridge. He spends his days and nights talking to the Chief Firefighter, the Lady Regent, the Chief of the Guard, the Head of His Majesty's Hospital, the Lady Treasurer, Dr Blitzmeyer, and a young bald man who once led the riots and now leads the crews of civilians helping with the reconstruction.

“We will build again,” says the news anchor at the close of every nine o'clock edition.

Ballister sits in his study, with a broken door behind him, and wonders.

Ambrosius leaves his room only when Ballister is out of the castle. When he arrives, he finds traces of these excursions (a broken mug hastily stuffed behind a cupboard, an empty can of olives, cushions kicked out of place). It's like living with a petulant poltergeist. 

When Ballister thought about it once (late at night, guiltily, well before Nimona arrived to fill the castle with joy and the noise of breaking walls), he hadn't imagined it'd be like this, this silence. Ambrosius had never been quiet, neither as a friend or an enemy or whatever else he had been. Ambrosius always made his presence known, and not just for his beauty, his incredible hair, or his questionable taste in armour.

Sometimes, when it's late and he can't sleep and he's looking over another depressing budget report, Ballister wonders if he's dreaming all this, lying somewhere in a hospital bed. His dreams have always been depressing.

He misses Nimona hanging off his shoulder, criticising his plans and proposing fire and mayhem, even if fire and mayhem is the last thing they need these days.

The Lady Regent seems to sleep even less than he does. Not only does half the city need rebuilding, as well as the Institution, but the protests have not stopped completely. The Institution was the worst offender, but the King wasn't very popular either, nor were most of his ministers. There are reforms needed, and a new leader, says Lady Greatthorn, rubbing her eyes tiredly. It's three in the morning and Ballister is wondering how many days he can go without sleep before he starts hallucinating sharks with legs dancing around his study, and if that would be a bad thing.

“What about the princess?” he asks, because a coronation is the sort of thing people like, something to lift the spirits and calm the civilians.

The Lady Regent shakes her head, her lips thinning.

“It's all the doctors can do to keep her alive after what happened at the palace,” she says. “She will never wake up. We are searching for other relatives of the late King all over the kingdom. There must be some, if the rumours aren't wrong.”

“Good luck with that,” Ballister says.

“Thank you. How is Sir Goldenloin?”

Ballister looks at a corner of the glowing screen while he tries to formulate a response.

“Better,” he decides to say.

“Good luck with that,” says Lady Greatthorn, and they murmur their goodbyes not long after.

One of the few surviving knights dared asked Ballister about the position of Champion, three days before. No one had been named Champion after Sir Goldenloin's demotion, and Sir Hauteglance wanted to know if a tournament would be held soon.

Ballister hadn't meant to make the young knight cry, but he can't find it in himself to regret it either.

He stops in front of Ambrosius' door on his way to his own bedroom. There is silence inside. Perhaps Ambrosius sleeps peacefully, golden hair spread all over his pillow, like he did when they were younger. Perhaps he's awake, curled up in a corner of the bed, holding his breath to better hear Ballister's footsteps when he walks away.

He does walk away. He has been doing the same thing every night.

When he reaches his room, he sits on the edge of his bed. Ballister doesn't know whether it's better to sleep or to stay awake. Sleep brings nightmares, staying awake comes with a litany of regrets. In both cases, he'll greet the morning sick with thoughts of things he could have done differently. Things he might have told Nimona to make her understand that he accepted her, hellbeast or not; tips he might have given Ambrosius before the battle so that, after it, he needn't have heard that accompaniment of broken bones crunching as he carried him out; safeguards he might have put in place to guarantee a city-wide evacuation in case of emergency. 

He dreams of Nimona flinching away from him (nightmare or memory?), and he wakes up to rehash all the conversations he should have had with her in those afternoons when she grew tired of his science and kept trying to get his attention with increasingly destructive transformations, or in those evenings when she had tired herself out and curled up besides him on the sofa, small and warm and sleepy.

In the morning, he speaks to Dr Blitzmeyer and, for the twentieth time, apologises for the loss of her life's work.

“I've told you, I'll build it again,” she says, waving her hand dismissively. “I have the plans, and ideas for improvements, and I'll make sure to reinforce the casing this time... and include an off switch. Perhaps even a timer!”

The image flickers.

“Power cuts,” Blitzmeyer explains once it clears. “That's the only thing making my work difficult right now. The whole city is suffering from those since the main power plant got damaged.”

Perhaps it's sleep deprivation. Perhaps it's guilt. Perhaps it's the echoing silence that fills the castle in Nimona's absence. Perhaps it's the idea that someone else can disrupt Ambrosius' ghostly presence in a way that Ballister himself doesn't dare. In any case, Ballister finds himself extending an invitation to Dr Blitzmeyer to stay at the castle and make use of his neglected laboratory.

He's almost more surprised when she accepts than he is at his own invitation.

That night, he stops in front of the door to the guest bedroom.

“Ambrosius?” he asks, and only the complete silence on the other side lets him know Ambrosius is listening. “Dr Blitzmeyer is coming tomorrow to use the lab, she might stay a few days while power is restored to her neighbourhood.” 

He hesitates, thinks about asking if this is OK, but this is his house, and all the apologies and all the heroics and all the guilt in the world can't quite extinguish a resentment Ballister has spent years nurturing.

So he says nothing, and no sound comes from Ambrosius' room, and Ballister goes to his room for another sleepless night.

When Dr Blitzmeyer arrives, loaded with boxes and a duffel and a notebook carefully wrapped in leather, Ballister lets her in and watches her carefully for signs of... something, as he shows her around the lab. Will he ever again be able to meet someone and not wonder if they are a shapeshifter putting him to the test?

But no, Bliztmeyer is Blitzmeyer, unpacking a kettle before her equipment, keeping up a steady stream of chatter than Nimona couldn't replicate. Ballister relaxes, a little disappointed, and makes sure his new guest is settled in before excusing himself to see to some reports that arrived this morning.

“And how is Sir Goldenloin?” she asks when he's already in the doorway.

'Better,' is at the tip of his tongue, as is, 'fine', and, 'in his room', but Blitzmeyer was in hospital with them, she was in the room when Ambrosius woke up, and she helped hold him down while he thrashed and struggled and called out for Ballister. She deserves better than the lies Ballister has been telling himself.

“He's...” Ballister doesn't know what to say. Alive? Recovering? A ghost of his past self?

“Let's make him some tea,” Blitzmeyer decides, reaching into her duffel for a tin and three mismatched cups. “Does he take sugar?”

“Yes, three,” Ballister says automatically, still knowing the answer after all these years.

He watches Blitzmeyer cheerfully pottering about the lab until the tea is ready, and then he accepts two cups and the instructions to lead the way to Ambrosius' room.

It's only at the door he hesitates.

“Doctor, perhaps it would be better if I...”

“Nonsense!” says Blitzmeyer, pressing the button to open the door with the hand that's also holding her satchel. “Sir Goldenloin?”

The teacup rattles in Ballister's metal hand. The room is dark, the curtains tightly shut against the watery autumn sunlight. Ambrosius is sitting on the edge of his bed, head bowed, golden hair hiding his face, and though his hands tighten in the rumpled blankets when the doors open, he doesn't look up.

“Doctor Blitzmeyer,” he says in a small voice.

“Good day,” the good doctor says, walking inside. “We brought you some tea.”

“I don't think...”

“Nonsense! It's always time for tea. Gregor, give him his cup, it's the one with blue flowers on the rim.”

It's a delicate operation, but Ballister manages to put the cup in Ambrosius' hands without spilling anything; he attributes this small success to all the practice handling dangerous chemicals with his first, more primitive mechanical hand.

“So, how are you feeling?” Dr Blitzmeyer asks.

Ambrosius doesn't answer for a moment, teacup held in both hands. Ballister is so tense that he sips at his own cup without thinking about it (he never did like tea much).

“Fine,” Ambrosius says. He still hasn't looked up.

The tea tastes like lies and smoke, and it's all Ballister can do not to spit it back into the cup.

“Come now!” exclaims the doctor cheerfully. “How are you REALLY? Do you want me to take a look at you? I am a doctor, after all.”

Ballister opens his mouth to point out that Dr Blitzmeyer is a Doctor in Physics and Metaphysics, not an actual medical doctor, but he thinks better of it. She's already pulling out strange instruments from her satchel and taking a seat on the edge of the bed.

When she reaches for Ambrosius, Ballister looks away, but the former knight doesn't snap at her or move away like he had done with the hospital nurses; instead, he submits to the examination with a docility that is horrible to witness, and not just because of the scars that mar Ambrosius' once flawless face. 

Ballister thinks it's some consolation that Ambrosius will never see himself like this, then hates himself for the thought. As punishment, he forces himself to watch when Dr Blitzmeyer unravels the bandages around Ambrosius' eyes.

The doctors at His Majesty's Hospital made it very clear that it isn't as bad as it could be, and the stream of 'Deeply regret to inform you...' letters Ballister has had to send to the next of kin of knights and guards proves it. The scars may fade in time and Ambrosius didn't lose any limbs or mobility (not that Ballister is still bitter or anything), but his eyes were ruined in the battle against the hellbeast (Nimona).

Ambrosius is still strangely quiet as Dr Bliztmeyer finishes her examination.

“Well then,” she says, clapping her hands. “Everything is healing wonderfully. In a couple of weeks, you'll be as well as you're ever going to get.”

Ballister winces at her forthrightness. They've known that no amount of science or magic will fix his eyes even before Ambrosius had been discharged from hospital, but it isn't any easier to hear it now.

It's especially awful to see the quiet way in which Ambrosius receives the news. He shouted and thrashed when he woke up to darkness and finding Ballister gone, but after that, it seems like the fight has gone out of him. 

Ballister himself raged for months after getting out of hospital with his new mechanical arm; he threw scientific equipment, punched walls, slammed doors, screamed at helpful medical personnel, made plans, swore revenge against the Institution. He was incandescent with anger, manic with resentment. He expected Ambrosius to react the same, only more dramatically so.

He doesn't recognise his friend anymore, and the scars have nothing to do with it.

“So, what are you going to do?” This time, Dr Blitzmeyer's question is addressed to the both of them.

Ballister looks at Ambrosius. Ambrosius just sits there, pale eyelids half-closed over milky eyes, and says nothing; his hands, so swift once to reach for his sword or clench in rage, now lie loosely on his lap.

“We'll see,” says Ballister, then winces at himself because, obviously, Ambrosius will not.

“You'll probably want to start with one of those mechanised canes,” Blitzmeyer continues blithely, covering his stumble. “But echolocation technology has advanced enormously in the last couple of years! I'm sure that, between Gregor and I, we'll be able to come up with something that lets you move around more easily.”

Ambrosius shrugs languidly in response. 

He has lost weight in the weeks since the battle; he was always slightly smaller and shorter than Ballister, but now he thinks he could lift him up with one hand. Or maybe punch him. He wants to punch him. Perhaps a fight, like those in the old times, would do them good, would raise Ambrosius from this morass of uncaring, and give an outlet to the anger and guilt that Ballister can feel skittering along his veins.

Except that not even when he was a villain would he have punched a defenceless blind man still nursing five broken ribs.

“I need to get to work,” Ballister says, putting his cup of tea down on the nearest available surface. 

In his career as a knight and supervillain, he never ran away from a confrontation, at least not without a good parting quip, some valuable loot, and appropriately showy destruction. Now, however, he flees the room and goes to take out his frustration on a report on the clean-up of what remains of the Institution's experimental areas.

It's late when he makes his way back to his bedroom, through the darkened castle. The door to Ambrosius' room is ajar, and Ballister is surprised that no light filters through to the corridor until he remembers that Ambrosius has no reason to turn on the lights anymore.

He stands in front of the door and feels intensely ridiculous for a minute.

“Ballister?”

There's something to be said for Ambrosius, and it's that –for all his lack of self-awareness, general callousness, refusal to admit when he's in the wrong, powers of self-delusion, and having the capacity for empathy of a non-genetically-modified cantaloupe–, he's always been the braver of the two.

“... yes?” Ballister asks, approaching the open door cautiously.

“Don't just stand there.”

It's the first time Ambrosius has addressed him or spoken of his own volition since leaving hospital. Ballister longed for a confrontation just hours before, but right now he's beginning to think he didn't appreciate the silence enough when he had it.

A little light comes in through the corridor, and, after a moment, Ballister's eyes get used to it and he can pick his way to sit on the edge of the bed, since the only chair in the room has been moved out of the way. Ambrosius is still sitting as he was earlier, though Dr Blitzmeyer must have replaced the bandages around his eyes before she left.

“So...” Ballister casts about for a conversation subject. Usually this was Ambrosius' job, as he rarely ceased speaking, but this new ghostly Ambrosius seems comfortable with silence. “What did you and the Doctor talk about?”

“Science,” Ambrosius answers vaguely. “She tried to explain how the glowing artefact worked, I think. Echolocation, too.”

“I looked into that,” Ballister says. “It should be possible to build a device that maps your surroundings via echolocation and then transfers the information directly to your brain. Detailing isn't too good with current technology, but I think it's a matter of fine-tuning the frequencies and...”

Ballister lets his explanation trail off. Ambrosius never cared much for science, considering it well below knightly skills, but he always tried hard to look like he was listening when Ballister went on one of his tangents. Now, however, he's picking at the baggy knees of the breeches he's wearing, head bowed.

“Will you pay attention? This could help you,” Ballister snaps.

“Why bother?” asks Ambrosius, lifting his head and, oh, Ballister will never get used to not seeing those blue eyes again. “Why bother, Ballister? I will never be a knight again.”

“So what? A knight isn't all you are.”

“Isn't it? It's all I ever wanted to be, all I ever knew how to be. Even if, in the end, I wasn't as good knight as I thought.”

“You were. Ambrosius, you were. You saved the city...”

“No,” he interrupts. “You saved the city. Doctor Bliztmeyer saved the city. Even Nimona. I got defeated and had to be saved, like a... like a civilian.”

“That's not true. You helped with the evacuation, and held the hellbeast at bay. If it had been anything else than... if it had been anyone else than Nimona, you would have killed it.”

“It doesn't matter. I will never be able to do something like that again.”

Ballister takes a fortifying breath.

“I know this is difficult, Ambrosius, but look at me. I stopped being a knight and my life didn't end.”

“That's not what you said to me,” says Ambrosius, his mouth turning down in a bitter gesture. “Repeatedly. Loudly. And very often.”

“Of course I was angry! I still am! But it's not the end of the world. Yes, you will never be a knight again. But we'll build you an echolocator and you can do something else.”

“I am a knight, I don't want to do something else!” At last, Ballister sees a familiar gesture he'd thought lost: Ambrosius' hands are curled into fists. “You should have left me there and carried Nimona out instead!”

“Don't say that!” Blind or not, Ballister is certain he'd feel so much better if he could just punch Ambrosius once. Just a little punch, enough to shake some SENSE into that blond head. “Don't say that, God. Don't you think I already feel bad enough for having had to choose?”

“You chose wrong.”

“No,” Ballister answers with a certainty he didn't know he could still feel after all that happened. “I couldn't have left you there. Blind or not, Ambrosius, I...”

He confessed it to Dr Bliztmeyer before the battle, at the end of his emotional rope, but he's shied away from it since then. He couldn't even stand to hear it from Ambrosius that night, not knowing if either of them would survive to do something about it, and afterwards... afterwards there was the hospital, and the bandages, and kind doctors shaking their heads, and Ambrosius turning into a pale, silent ghost.

And now, now there is a knot in his throat the size of a rhinoceros.

“I promised you, didn't I?” asks Ambrosius in a small voice (his voice was never small, not even as a child). “That I wouldn't get killed.”

“You did,” Ballister agrees. “And you didn't. Get killed, I mean.”

There's a pause. Say it now, says a voice in Ballister's head that sounds a lot like Nimona at her most exasperated. What are you waiting for?

“I don't know what to do,” says Ambrosius, and lets out a small sob. “Ballister, I can't even cry properly.”

Damaged tearducts, Ballister reminds himself as he puts his better arm (the mechanical one, obviously) around his friend's shoulder. Ambrosius never cried openly, not even when he was mercilessly bullied in the Orphanage. Ballister remembers only one or two times that a small blond kid sneaked into his bed at night and curled by his side under the single blanket, holding himself very still and leaving a small damp patch in the lumpy pillow.

Like then, Ballister holds him tightly and curses himself for not knowing what to say.

Ambrosius' little outburst only lasts a moment. Then, he draws back and wipes his nose with his sleeve.

“Sorry.”

“No, you have no need to be.”

“Meredith said she'd bring me a new cane tomorrow. The one they gave me at hospital is horrible, I can't even see it and I know it is...”

“I love you.”

Ambrosius not only stops speaking but also seems to stop breathing, or maybe it's all an effect of Ballister's blood roaring in his ears. He covers his face with his good hand. Years of holding it back through fights and brawls and bank robberies, and now he blurts it out like this?

“Of course you do,” says Ambrosius after a moment, sounding a little confused. “And I love you too. Did– did it really need saying?”

“Yes!”

“Oh.” Ambrosius' hand moves from his lap to find Ballister's thigh and pat it clumsily. “That still doesn't fix anything,” he adds after a moment.

“I know.” Ballister does, really, and he'll be suitably grave and morose about it in one minute, when he can stop smiling. “But the echolocator will, you'll see, you only have to give us a chance to build it. And there is so much you can still do, you should see the news, the people love you now more than ever...”

Fortunately, Ambrosius doesn't seem to notice Ballister's unfortunate turn of phrase. He looks thoughtful and a little sad, all expressions no one would have ever thought of seeing in the face of country's best-loved knight.

“Did you really not know?” he asks. And, before Ballister can pretend they're talking about the news or the latest advances in echolocation, “That I love you, I mean?”

“Well...”

“You were always a little dim about these things, Ballister, but really?!”

Ballister's learned reaction to Ambrosius' supercilious tone has been, for the last ten years, to get angry, then say something hurtful in return and, a) punch him in the face, or b) flee the location amidst a showy explosion. It seems that now he'll need to develop a new strategy.

He leans in and stops a hair's breadth away from Ambrosius' lips, breathing loudly (he tells himself it's to let Ambrosius realise his position, but really he's so nervous that Dr Blitzmeyer back in the lab can probably hear his heartbeat). When the blond knight doesn't move away, Ballister presses forwards to touch his lips against Ambrosius', as gently as their first time, when Ambrosius hadn't yet hit his last growth spurt and had half-jokingly offered Ballister his favour for a tourney in which he hadn't been allowed to participate.

The bandages are scratchy against his hand, and there is a scar on the corner of Ambrosius' lips which wasn't there before, but when Ambrosius moves forwards to return the kiss, Ballister might as well be seventeen again.

“I love you,” he murmurs.

“You said that already,” Ambrosius points out helpfully.

“It bears repeating.”

In the last few weeks, Ballister has seen defeated Ambrosius, listless Ambrosius, ghostly Ambrosius, Ambrosius trying to hide his bandages and scars under the silky fall of his hair, all things he didn't believe he'd ever see. Now, he gets to see Ambrosius giving him a small, soft smile, a little disbelieving and sad around the edges, but still real.

He looks away, wondering if he deserves being smiled at like that. The reports coming in about the destruction of the city seem to indicate that he isn't, but...

“Can you brush my hair?” asks Ambrosius into the silence, gesturing at the mass of soft blond hair that shines even in the dim light, since it hasn't seemed to have been informed that its owner is in the midst of deep depression. “I can't do it properly without seeing myself in the mirror, and I keep catching the bandages with the brush.”

“Of course.”

Ballister has done this a thousand times. Not recently, of course, but back in the Orphanage when Ambrosius insisted in growing out his hair in spite of the teasing and the fact that it got irreparably tangled after every fight; and later, in Knight School when Ambrosius was already building up his golden image but still had time to share with his best friend, first (his boyfriend, later). Cold nights and sunny afternoons, Ambrosius chattering away about everything and nothing, and Ballister sitting behind him, hands buried in the silken mass of his hair.

Like everything, it's different now: a few hairs get stuck in the joints in Ballister's mechanical hand and Ambrosius doesn't speak much, not even to complain, but there's enough familiarity in the ritual that Ballister thinks he can remember how to be the person he once was, at least in part.

“This still doesn't fix anything,” he admits to the back of Ambrosius' head as he starts braiding his golden hair (Ambrosius, so dexterous with sword, lance, and hand-cannon, could never learn to braid his own hair). “But it's a start.”

“You know what would be a start?” Ambrosius' voice is shaking with the effort of sounding normal. “If you cleared the rubble in the kitchen, I keep tripping over it when I go to search for food in the fridge.”

“I'll do that tomorrow,” Ballister agrees. “Oh, and please don't eat anything in a plastic container, I keep some experiments in the fridge.”

“Well, you obviously don't keep any food in there,” observes Ambrosius tartly, bowing his head to Ballister can reach the ends.

“I love you.”

“Are you going to try to end all of our fights like this?”

“... maybe.”

“It's preferable to getting punched in the face, I guess.”

“I'd forgotten how utterly unromantic you were,” says Ballister, startled into a laugh.

“Because you were always too romantic for your own good.”

Ballister wants to make a remark about how his romanticism wasn't worth a damn for his career in supervillany, but he bites it back. They'll have a hundred arguments where they'll dredge up their past and their scars, both physical and not. Tonight, he can let one comment go and instead lean forwards to press his forehead against the back of Ambrosius neck.

“I love you.”

Ballister manages to get four hours of sleep, with Ambrosius' hair tickling at his nose. In the darkness, it's possible to pretend that the last ten years have not happened, and that they are young men with their whole lives ahead of them and no scars to speak of.

One hour before dawn, Ballister slips away to his study, to preserve the illusion. If he expected Ambrosius to leave his room during the day, depression cured, he would be disappointed, but he didn't and he isn't. Like in the reconstruction of the city, nothing is fixed, but they have given a first step and that must suffice for the moment. 

Piles of work and important calls distract him enough that he only thinks about Ambrosius about three times per minute, and only turns around expecting to find Nimona seven times.

“So, Lord Blackheart,” says Lady Greatthorn at the end of a conversation that's almost a word-for-word repetition of the conversation he had with the Lady Treasurer in the morning about budgeting for new equipment for the guards. “You grew up in the Royal Orphanage, did you not?”

“Yes,” says Ballister plainly. In a country run by aristocrats, he made it a point of pride to remember his origins.

“We have been tracking down more members of the Royal Family, trying to find someone to take the throne. The late king's great-aunt, bless her heart, turned us down from what she said was her deathbed... she'll live twenty years more, mark my words, I know that type, you should see my aunt Meryl... and we found a second cousin, but he took orders in the Monastery of Saint Mellonius.”

“And the princess?”

“In a coma still, and deteriorating as we speak. There is nothing we can do for her, or her for us.” The Lady Regent shakes her head sadly; she is the princess' godmother, Ballister remembers. “But we also found an old royal tutor who told us that the king might have fathered a child out of wedlock, when he was young. As far as we can tell, the child ended up in the Royal Orphanage some twenty years ago.”

“Surely there are records...”

“As an establishment under patronage of the Institution, all the Orphanage's records were kept by them, and were destroyed in the recent events.”

“I see.”

Lady Greytthorn gives him a shrewd look from under her bushy grey eyebrows.

“Did you ever meet His Majesty?”

Is it germane for a former supervillain to mention the time he almost managed to kidnap the king?

“No, I...” An awful thought suddenly intrudes in Ballister's mind. “Surely you're can't be suggesting that I...? I assure you, my parents were very respectable people.”

“I'm sure,” says Lady Greatthorn with a smile. “But no... though it would certainly be convenient if you had an excuse sit on the throne, your popularity is the only thing that has allowed us to push forward the rebuilding of the Institution. Unfortunately, according to our sources, the child we're looking for must have been some years younger than you.”

“Well, there were certainly several younger children in the Orphanage, some of which even didn't know or remember their parents. Anabelle, she's married to a baker now if I remember correctly, and Clarissa, who ended up in gaol, and Darius too... Gareth and Miken were, of course, picked up by the Institution at the same time they picked up Ambrosius– ”

On the screen, Lady Greatthorn slams her wine goblet against her desk so loudly that Ballister jumps in his chair.

“Sir Goldenloin was in the Orphanage?”

“Yes, he doesn't like to talk about it, but–”

“Surely it cannot be.”

“Milady?” asks Ballister carefully, not used to having exquisitely well-mannered Lady Regent interrupt him like this. 

Lady Greatthorn stares at him with wide eyes, not seeming to having heard him.

“Good God, it cannot be,” she repeats, “and yet... who else?”

“I'm afraid I'm not following your line of thought, Lady Greatthorn,” Ballister says with a frown. Perhaps all the hard work is taking its toll on the elderly woman; he must remember to send her a basket filled with aspirin and fine brandy, for her birthday.

“Who else could have been so beautiful to catch a king's eye?” The lady shakes her head in disbelief, then looks back at Ballister. “Does Sir Goldenloin remember his parents?”

“Ambrosius? Only his mother a little, I believe, he always mentioned his hair is much like hers once was. Of course, he also used to say...” 

Ballister's words die in his throat and only a strangled sound comes out.

_““I'll call my dad, he'll have them arrested.” “You don't have a dad.” “Do too. He's rich and lives in a castle far away.” “Everyone knows you made that up.”_ “

“It can't be,” he whispers.

Lady Greatthorn smiles grimly, seemingly satisfied to have dragged Ballister into her delusions. 

“I'll have the doctors send you samples off Her Highness right away. I trust you can do the tests yourself?” 

Ballister nods dumbly.

“Of course, I needn't tell you that, until we have confirmation, this is a matter of the utmost discretion.”

Ballister mumbles words he hopes can pass as agreement, and nods at the screen until Lady Greatthorn says her goodbyes.

Dr Blitzmeyer is in the lab, happily using a long articulated screwdriver to poke at a flask full of a dully glowing gel.

“Gregor! You look a bit dazed. Would you like a cup of tea?”

Ballister shakes his head, not that Bliztmeyer pays him any attention as she turns towards her trusty kettle.

“So, what brings you here? Finally freed up some time to work on the echolocator? I asked Ambrosius and he has some very clear ideas on what he wants it to look like, so I started some designs, look here.”

Ballister stares unseeingly at the tablet Bliztmeyer thrusts at him. He should feel guilty for not having enough time to do his work as director and his duty as both a scientist and a boyfriend, but his mind is too busy at the moment trying to process Lady Greatthorn's suspicion.

“Doctor, I'm going to need to do some genetic tests soon,” he says instead, having the tablet snatched from his hands and replaced with a cup of tea.

“Of course, I'll clear your workbench, just give me a moment, maybe I'll find my notebook there...” Bliztmeyer takes an armful of papers and drops them cheerfully on the floor. “There you are. Genetic tests, huh? They have you doing forensic work on top of everything else? You have to learn when to say 'no', Gregor, you're overworked as it is.”

“No, no, it's... the Lady Regent thinks... it cannot be, of course, but...”

Blitzmeyer waits patiently behind her cup of tea while Ballister stumbles over his words.

“The Lady Regent thinks Ambrosius is the king's son,” he blurts out at last.

“Mmmm.” Blitzmeyer, unruffled, takes a sip of her tea, then digs into the pockets of her labcoat and comes up a coin, which she begins to examine with a magnifying glass. “I guess I can see the resemblance in the nose. Not the hair, goodness me, Ambrosius must have got that from his mother.”

“Yes, he...” Ballister comes to his senses, puts down his cup of tea, and shakes his head decisively. “Never mind. Please don't tell him anything about this, Doctor. I'm sure it's nonsense and I don't want to worry him unnecessarily.”

“If that's what you want.” Blitzmeyer shrugs and puts the coin back in her pocket. “It'd be nice, though. He wouldn't need eyes to be king, God knows the late one was blind in his own way.”

“I had been thinking of steering the Lady Regent to consider a democracy,” Ballister confesses with a sigh. “It seems, I don't know, more modern.”

Dr Blitzmeyer doesn't care about politics, though, and she returns her attention to her previous experiment, humming happily as she works, leaving Ballister to consider the possible benefits of a parliamentary monarchy.

He ends up, as it's usual now, at Ambrosius' door, where he's greeted by a crash and some eloquent swearing.

“It's useless,” the blond says when Ballister opens the door. “I can't do this, tell Meredith not to bother with a new one, I'll never be able to use a cane.”

“How did you know it was me?” asks Ballister, choosing not to address the results of cane practice.

“I'm blind, but I can still hear just fine,” snaps Ambrosius, standing in the middle of the room, blond hair tumbling around his flushed face. “Your footsteps couldn't be more different from Meredith's if you actually tried stomping about like a beast instead of doing it because it comes naturally to you.”

Ambrosius hates not excelling at everything. Failure tastes bitter to him, and a frustrated Ambrosius can be an unpleasant one.

Then again, Ballister remembers his first attempts at shaving himself with his mechanical hand; a nurse had fainted at the words coming from the hospital bathroom.

“It's useless. I'M useless! You were right, I was the villain all along, and now this!”

The white bandages around his eyes make his reddened cheeks seem redder, the scars stand out more. Ballister tells himself to be patient, tells himself he doesn't feel guilty at hearing his own words used as tools of Ambrosius' self-flagellation.

“Come here,” he says, and puts his good hand on Ambrosius' shoulder, where his tunic is slipping down, to reel him in. Ambrosius' struggles, but it's only for show, even though he gets in a good blow with his elbow; they've fought often enough that Ballister knows that even blind and weakened Ambrosius could do some serious damage if he wanted.

It takes him an hour to calm Ambrosius down enough that he agrees to go to sleep instead of joining a monastic order. Ballister wants to get in bed with him, to soothe the inevitable nightmares (and perhaps be soothed in return), but instead he takes a handful of blond hairs from the brush he wielded the night before and returns to his lab, feeling more like a supervillain than at any point in the last ten years.

The people would love if Ambrosius turned out to be the king's son. For all the anger at the Institution for its authoritarian methods and questionable experiments, the people still love heroics and cannot forget Sir Goldenloin's many well-publicised successes, or the images of him helping evacuate the city.

For all the people know, Ambrosius is still in hospital, recovering. At the foot of the statue of him in the city centre, which miraculously survived Nimona's destruction, a tall memorial for his recovery has been growing, made up of flowers, stuffed animals, candles, and bottles of hair products. 

Ballister sets the centrifuge to work and reaches for the tea cup that Blitzmeyer has helpfully set by his side, then discreetly pours the liquid down the drain. She makes for a pleasant labmate, but he catches himself missing Nimona again, even the way she had of breaking only the most expensive glassware and spilling only the most dangerous reactants.

“So, Gregor, what are you going to do if Ambrosius does end up being the king's long-lost son?” asks Bliztmeyer after an hour or two, putting down a soldiering iron.

Ballister grimaces. In his current mood, it's anyone's guess how Ambrosius might react to the news, and thought of exposing a vulnerable, volatile Ambrosius to the public eye as the new king sits uncomfortably with him. On the other hand, they do need a king, and it would be unfair to deny Ambrosius knowledge of his father after all the times Ballister belittled what he thought were delusions back in the Orphanage.

“I will tell him,” he decides. “It will be his choice whether I tell the Lady Regent the truth or not.”

“Mm,” says Blitzmeyer, and then moves away. “Do you have any ionised manticore extract? This glass needs to be annealed properly...”

Ballister keeps telling himself that all his worry and all his speculation will be for naught, right up until the machine beeps and the results come out.

“Huh,” says Blitzmeyer, coming to join him in front of the screen. “Who'd have thought?”

Ambrosius, Ambrosius knew, until too many beatings and his best friend's disbelief made him put those daydreams about his rich, powerful father away. Ballister is not looking forwards to the conversation he's going to have to initiate in the morning.

Dr Blitzmeyer suggests taking Ambrosius a cup of tea to soften the blow; Ballister, who thinks he knows him better, makes coffee and promises himself for the hundredth time that he'll buy something edible to fill the cupboards.

When he arrives to Ambrosius' bedroom, he's already up, doing light callisthenics at the side of the bed. One of the first things they taught them at Knight School was how to recover after being laid up with a serious injury, and for all it's a symptom of improvement, it breaks Ballister's heart to see Ambrosius act like he is going to put his armour back on any day now.

“Coffee?” asks Ambrosius, standing up from a lunge; he's shirtless (except for the bandages still compressing his healing ribs), slightly flushed, with his hair in a disarray Ballister would call artful if didn't know Ambrosius' hair had a mind of its own and was possibly more vain than its owner.

“Yes,” he replies, trying to sound like he wasn't staring.

Ambrosius holds out his hand and waits for Ballister to put the coffee between his fingers.

“What did you do?” he asks after having taken his first sip.

“What makes you think I've done something?”

Ambrosius lifts the cup of coffee meaningfully; if his eyes weren't bandaged, he certainly would be rolling them.

“You never do anything for me without making me ask for it,” Ambrosius continues. “I'm pretty sure the last time you brought me coffee was when you broke my favourite training lance.”

Ballister wants to deny it, but he also likes to encourage Ambrosius' occasional flashes of insight. And it's true: Ballister tried to keep Ambrosius from becoming too spoilt once he grew into his beauty and charisma, he just didn't think anyone noticed, particularly not the victim of his lesson.

“I spoke to the Lady Regent,” he says instead.

“You do that most days.”

“She asked after you.”

Ambrosius frowns lightly.

“She went to visit me in hospital, she heard the doctors. What does she want me for?”

Ballister clears his throat and takes a deep breath.

“You're the king's son.”

Ambrosius' head snaps up, the obvious equivalent to the startled glance he can't give anymore. Ballister waits for a reaction, any reaction, but his friend gives him none, just silence and stillness and shallow breathing.

“I'm sorry,” says Ballister when he can't stand it any longer. “I ran the tests last night while you slept. I haven't told Lady Greatthorn yet, and I won't tell her if you don't want me to.”

“Why–?” Ambrosius lifts the cup to his lips and takes a sip; if his wavering voice hadn't given him away, the coffee that sloshes onto the rug would. “Why wouldn't I want her to know? Hasn't it been a secret long enough?”

It takes a moment for Ballister to process this.

“... you knew?”

Ambrosius laughs, and it's a bitter, unhappy sound.

“I stopped trying to get you to believe me by the time I was twelve. You were so proud of me for having grown out of my daydreams, weren't you? Silly, naïve Ambrosius who believed in fairytales and Father Christmas and his own father.”

Ballister's mouth is hanging open, and he's almost glad Ambrosius can't see him like this. To think that his friend, who he thought he knew so well, could keep a secret of this magnitude all his life... he thinks of Nimona, then shuts the thought down to focus on the present conversation.

“Why didn't you say anything? Later, when we were in Knight School, or... God, Ambrosius, you must have met the King a thousand times as Champion of the Institution.”

“They would have had me expelled from School and made sure I was never a Knight. And by the time I met the King, he had Princess Lorenna and I was happy with my position, so why say anything?” 

Ambrosius shrugs as if he had said something completely ordinary. Ballister wishes people dear to him would stop telling him they were someone else all along.

“Why does the Lady Regent want to know?” asks Ambrosius after another sip of coffee.

“The king is dead, the princess is dying,” Ballister replies, unable to reconcile what he's known all his life and the results on the screen of his lab; these aren't Ambrosius' relatives they are discussing, just figureheads who never did anything for either of them. “You're all that remains of the Royal Family. You will be king.”

Ambrosius impatiently blows air out of his nose.

“Look at me, Ballister. I can't even dress myself properly, for all I know I'm wearing a yellow tunic with grey breeches, and you want me to be king?”

Ballister doesn't WANT Ambrosius to be king, he just can't think of a reason why not other that the completely irrational and selfish desire to keep him all to himself.

“You would make a far better king than the last one, even Dr Blitzmeyer thinks so,” Ballister argues weakly.

“Meredith also thinks that one should brush one's hair while wet, what does she know?”

“You care about the people of this kingdom and only ever wanted to serve them, you were ready to sacrifice yourself for their safety, what part of that would not make a far better king than any we've had?”

“The part where I'm blind and possibly disfigured.”

“You could never be anything less than beautiful,” Ballister tells him, and Ambrosius looks slightly mollified. “And I'm sure there was a blind queen once, perhaps two centuries ago, I remember had to write an essay on her once for Professor Fitzgeorge.”

Ambrosius gives a few shaky steps towards the bed, then holds his hand out until he locates the nightstand and can put his cup down.

“Do you want me to be king?” he asks, his voice unreadable, his bandaged face turned towards the wall.

Ballister is certain there is a right answer now, just as he was certain there was something he could have said to make Nimona stay. However, just like that night, he doesn't know what that is.

“I think you would make a good king,” he says instead, opting for honesty.

Behind the bandages and the scars and the waves of golden hair, Ambrosius' face is unreadable when he turns around.

“Very well. With one condition.”

********************

The coronation of King Ambrosius goes without a hitch. There wasn't time for the Royal Palace to be rebuilt, but at least the rubble has been cleared off the square and a dais was built for the new king to greet his subjects and lay down the first stone of what will be the new palace. Coronation and reconstruction, all in one.

“It's a beautiful ceremony and King Ambrosius looks so dashing in those golden robes,” says an old lady who has been camping in the square for two days to get a good place at the very first line in front of the dais. “But it's a shame that King Consort Ballister is scowling and looking around suspiciously all the time. It's supposed to be a solemn ceremony!”

“Well, ma,” says her son, who has loyally stood besides her all this time. “It's understandable he gets nervous, not everyone has had to pull their beloved from a burning building after he defeated a mighty beast and almost died in the process! Cut him some slack, he still looks dashing enough.”

“He does,” allows the lady. “But all that looking around and squinting, it's making me nervous. One would think he's waiting for someone to show up.”

“Excuse me. Sorry, coming through!” pipes a squeaky voice coming about waist-high.

“Careful, child!” the lady exclaims, hand darting out with all the reflexes of a mother of nine to catch the kid's shoulder as he comes barrelling through, all messy black hair and sugar-covered face. “The kings are almost here, careful you don't get trampled by the guards. Stay here and eat your churro, you'll see them from close enough. Where are your parents anyway?”

“Long live King Ambrosius!” shouts someone in the crowd as the new King begins to make his way down the dais, his consort's mechanical hand leading him by the elbow.

The old lady, her son, and the rest of the crowd echo the words, startling a flock of pigeons from the nearby roofs and putting an end of the line of questioning directed towards the intrepid child, who stands at the very front of the crowd, churro in hand, and smiles with teeth that are perhaps a tiny bit too sharp for its apparent age.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback and constructive criticism are not just welcomed, but encouraged!


End file.
